DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: TRANSLATIONS 

1.  “Uncertainty in meaning is incipient poetry.” “Confusion is not an ignoble condition.” Why do you think the play seems to celebrate ambiguity?
2. Hedge schools, like the one depicted in the play, were informal places of learning where students bartered or paid a local educated person to teach arithmetic, reading, and writing, and often other hallmarks of a classical education including Latin and Greek. Why do you think Brian Friel chose a hedge school for the setting of Translations?What were your expectations of the story and the characters based on the setting, and in what ways were you surprised by them?
3. Maire says, “Some of you people aren’t happy unless you’re miserable,” talking about the way the community always predicts calamity that never occurs. But by the play’s end, we see disaster is imminent. Which characters embrace optimism and which are more pessimistic? How does that worldview influence their path in the play?
4. Translations is a play made up of insiders and outsiders—except for Owen, who straddles the world of the Irish and British. How does he navigate that role? How do you see his beliefs and priorities change over the course of the play?
5. “Remember that words are signals, counters. They are not immortal.” Hugh shows a willingness to modernize the names of places, while Yolland values holding onto traditional names like Tobair Vree (Brian’s Well). Are there placenames near you which you know the origin of like Hugh does? When is it appropriate to update a traditional name to something new?
6. Maire quotes a local politician, “The old language is a barrier to modern progress.” How should societies navigate the tension between upholding tradition and embracing progress or efficiency? What are some examples in our society of that tension?
7. Yolland and Maire forge a strong bond despite sharing only a few words of each other’s language. Sarah is just beginning to communicate verbally yet has well-established relationships with the other students. Are there moments in your life where you’ve connected with others without a shared language? What other modes of communication exist beyond words?
8. Jimmy Jack and Maire embody a desire to escape their situations. Jimmy retreats into ancient myths from the past; Maire dreams of a future in America. By the end of the play, however, both express a longing for companionship, despite the object of their affection being unobtainable. Why does the playwright feature these characters in the play’s final moments? How do their individual journeys speak to the play’s larger themes?
9. Hugh’s final speech in the play is from Virgil’s epic poem The Aeneid. It speaks of a proud civilization (Carthage) destined to be destroyed by a people from across the sea (the future Romans). Why do you think Brian Friel ends his play with a classical quotation? Who is Carthage and who is Rome in the context of the play? Is this an attempt by Hugh to “renew images of the past embodied in language,” as he says is necessary?
10. The ending of the play seems to point to the situation in Northern Ireland at the time Friel was writing it: an increased British military presence, an insurgent Irish resistance, retaliatory violence on both sides, the decline of the Irish language. And yet the play has been embraced by many civilizations under siege, most recently receiving its Ukrainian premiere in 2022. What is it about the play that allows it to transcend its time and place?